Freedom from Slavery

The Yom Kippur Message [Based in part on Brit-Am Yom Kippur Addresses from Previous Years] by Yair Davidiy

Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) is a propitious time to liberate ourselves from the slavery of non-Israelite heathendom.

Duration ca. 29 minutes. For article please scroll down.

Tomorrow evening (25 th September, 2012) begins the 10th of Tishrei which is the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). It lasts until the evening of the next day. This day incidentally is my Hebrew Birthday though according to the secular calendar it was on the 20th September.

Yom Kippur follows after Rosh HaShannah (New Years Day) which fell on the first day of Tishrei. The name of the month of Tishrei is from the root TeSheR related to the word Teshurah meaning gift. On this month we have been judged and given the rest of our lives back as a free gift. Let us take advantage of it and use the gift well for the glory of God Almighty and the Israelite Nations.

This day, Yom Kippur, is a Fastday for Observant Jews and for most Jews in the State of Israel.

Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is mentioned in the Bible,

Leviticus 23: 26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 27 Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. 28 You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.

The DAY OF ATONEMENT (Yom Kippur) is a day of repentance. We may repent of our offences and be atoned at any time. Not all times however are the same. We may want to do something but feel unable to arouse ourselves in the necessary direction. ALTERNATELY we may feel we have repented but sense that something is missing, that we are not getting "through" to God. Yom Kippur is a time in which it should be easier to repent and that our repentance is more easily accepted or on which we may be enabled to reach a higher level of acceptability. Some days are better than others. We know this from our every-day existence. Yom Kippur is a DAY OF ATONEMENT. All Israelites need to repent. Do good and good will come unto you. Do bad and evil will be befall you. It may be said that good should be done because by definition it is the right thing to do. This however is not enough. The Almighty created us as human beings with legitimate needs and wants. God HIMSELF also promised us that if we obey HIM HE will reward us in a physical material sense as well as in a spiritual one.

We are justified in bribing our physical beings that if we are good we shall be rewarded. This is how we are made and it is a legitimate consideration. It can be seen quite openly that most of the time most good people have it "good". In the long run they live longer, healthier, and happier.

The same person being good has it better than they would have if they were bad. There are exceptions. The Book of Job also speaks of exceptions. The hero of the Book of Job was an exception. Even though he was righteous there was a period when he was made to endure trials and tribulations. Nevertheless the principle still holds. Doing good brings reward. Evil incurs punishment. If we have sinned and deserve to be punished we may mitigate the punishment or even avoid it altogether and receive a blessing instead. This is what happens when we repent and our sins are atoned for. This is the essence of Yom Kippur. To achieve atonement we should repent of our sins, confess our sins to the Almighty and not to other people, and resolve from now on to do good and not evil. This is what Yom Kippur is about.

On Yom Kippur Jews fast all day long and abstain from work. At the end of Yom Kippur it is customary to sound a long blast from the Shofar. This is in remembrance of the shofar that was blown on Yom Kippur in the Jubilee Year, in Hebrew "Yovel". The Jubilee Year fell on every fiftieth year at the end of a cycle of seven recurrences of the seven-year long sabbatical years, i.e. at the end of every 49th year one had the Jubilee Year on the Fiftieth year. The liberation however, that was associated with the Jubilee, did not come fully into effect on the first day but rather ten days later at the end of Yom Kippur. [In practice the indentured slaves would stop work on the first day of the year and hang around preparing themselves to go free for another 10 days] .

Leviticus 25: 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

# On the 10th of Tishrei [i.e. Yom Kippur] of the Jubilee year we are commanded to blow a shofar, as it says "And you shall pass a blowing shofar in the seventh month on the tenth of the month; on the Day of Atonement you shall pass a shofar throughout your land". ...The commandments involving the Jubilee year, including the laws of Hebrew [indentured] slaves, houses in walled cities, and land consecrated to the Temple or "devoted" to the priests, apply only when all of Israel dwells in the land of Israel. #

During the Jubilee year every Israelite indentured servant ("Hebrew Slave") would be set free. There were two types of slaves in the Bible:

(a) Canaanite Slaves were so called not because they necessarily were descended from Canaanites but rather had been acquired from the local peoples of Canaan who were not necessarily all Canaanites. Canaanite Slaves were those obtained from non-Israelite peoples.

Leviticus 25: 44 And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. 45 Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. 46 And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.

A non-Israelite slave who was freed automatically became an Israelite citizen with full rights and obligations. He had to keep all of the commandments.

Technically it was forbidden to free non-Israelite slaves unless they suffered physical damage.

Exodus 21: 26 If a man strikes the eye of his male or female servant, and destroys it, he shall let him go free for the sake of his eye. 27 And if he knocks out the tooth of his male or female servant, he shall let him go free for the sake of his tooth.

So too,

If the master went against the Law and freed the slave then the slave was nevertheless legally free. The manumission-liberation went into effect and the slave now became a full-fledged citizen.

(b) Hebrew Slaves were the second type of slaves. In Hebrew the word "eved" means both slave and servant. Hebrew slaves were really bonded (indentured) servants who were obliged to work for six years.

They were Israelites who had been caught stealing and could not pay restitution OR Israelites who had fallen into debt and had sold themselves.

Leviticus 25: 39 And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave. 40 As a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with you, and shall serve you until the Year of Jubilee. 41 And then he shall depart from you, he and his children with him, and shall return to his own family. He shall return to the possession of his fathers. 42 For they are My servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43 You shall not rule over him with rigor, but you shall fear your God.

Here it says the Hebrew Slave should work until the Jubilee Year. Normally, a Hebrew Slave would work for six years. During those six years he could redeem himself or be redeemed by others by paying the monetary worth of the time he still had to serve. At the end of six years he would receive an extra monetary bonus (beyond what he had sold himself for) and be sent home. If he did not want to go free in the seventh year then (after going through a ceremony) he could work until the Jubilee Year when he would have to go free.

Deuteronomy 15: 12 If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you. 13 And when you send him away free from you, you shall not let him go away empty-handed; 14 you shall supply him liberally from your flock, from your threshing floor, and from your winepress. From what the Lord your God has blessed you with, you shall give to him. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today. 16 And if it happens that he says to you, I will not go away from you, because he loves you and your house, since he prospers with you, 17 then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise. 18 It shall not seem hard to you when you send him away free from you; for he has been worth a double hired servant in serving you six years. Then the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.

We see from above that if the Hebrew slave did not want to leave his master then an awl would be poked through his ear lobe to a door. After that it would be removed. He would then have to work for his master for "ever" (Hebrew "le-olam") which in effect meant until the Jubilee Year. At the Jubilee Year whether he wanted to leave or not the Hebrew Slave would be set free.

So too in the Jubilee Year all ancestral lands would be returned to the families that owned them.

Leviticus 25: 8 And you shall count seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years; and the time of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

When the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan, it was divided amongst the Tribes. Each Tribe then in turn divided its portion to each of the families. These family portions were passed from father to son. They could not be sold permanently. They could only be sold until the Jubilee Year.

At the Jubilee Year every Israelite would return to their ancestral Tribal lands. There would be a reaffirmation of freedom and of Tribal inheritance. This would not happen immediately at the end of the Year but rather ten days later on Yom Kippur when the shofar would be blown, the servants set free, and Israelites who had lost their inheritances had them returned to them. Nowadays the Jubilee Year is not celebrated because we do not know which Tribes we belong to and because most of the Ten Lost Tribes are in Exile. Even if we know (as Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations believes it does) where the Lost Ten Tribes are we cannot point at any specific person and say with absolute certainty that they are a lost Israelite and belong to a specific tribe. The Ten Tribes have lost consciousness of their ancestry. This will change in the future. The Ten Tribes will return. Brit-Am is taking the first small steps in this direction. We are doing something about it. You too should also do what you can by supporting Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations or in any other way that helps. The return of the Ten Tribes is associated with the blowing of a shofar.

Isaiah 27: 13 So it shall be in that day: The great trumpet [shofar] will be blown; They will come, who are about to perish [ha-ovdim i.e. who were lost or being lost] in the land of Assyria, And they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, And shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.

The expression above translated as "who are about to perish" in Hebrew is "Ovdim". This also connotes "who are being lost" and it refers to the Lost Ten Tribes who were exiled to portions of the Assyrian Empire. This is referring to the Lost Ten Tribes. The Ten Tribes were exiled to Assyria and lost consciousness of their identity. Every day that their descendants lack consciousness of their ancerstry is an extra day lost. They are being lost. We want to find them and hep them find themselves. By doing this we believe that we too shall find ourselves. The Almighty will make HIMSELF found to us.

THE OUTCASTS in the above passage (Isaiah 27;13) means the Jews who were cast out of othe land but did not lose awareness of their orgins. They too will be liberated from the bondage of exile. IN THE LAND OF EGYPT in Hebrew "Mitsrayim" can mean Egypt but it also refers to Russia and related areas.

In other words the verse may be paraphrased to say:

#In that time a Great Shofar will be blown and the Ten Lost Tribes who were exiled by Assyria and the Jewish Captives who were scattered to Egypt, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere shall return. They shall worship the Almighty God of Israel in the Temple Mountain in Jerusalem.#

This verse from Isaiah 27:13 about blowing a great shofar is quoted several times in the Prayer Service for Yom Kippur.

We all need to repent. Repentance includes helping to bring about the principle of the Jubilee Year. This includes helping descendants of the Lost Tribes know where they are and who they are. This is what Brit-Am does. Brit-Am is helping Lost Israelites from the Ten Tribes and also from Judah become conscious of their Hebrew ancestry and identity. We are helping them prove that they are Israelites and to remain conscious of it and of its significance, at least in part. This is connected with the Jubilee Year and with repenting. Repentance therefore includes, amongst other things, helping Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations.

Repentance also means realizing that in a sense we all act as SLAVES TO OUR SURROUNDINGS and habits. God wants us to be free and to do HIS will. Let us take advantage of this time of liberty and free ourselves. Yom Kippur is a propitious time to liberate ourselves. Let us be true to ourselves. Let us free ourselves. Let us return to our Israelite origins. Let us turn back to the Almighty and to Biblical Consciousness. Help yourselves and also, if you can, help Brit-Am. Brit-Am/Hebrew Nations is on your side. We are your ally and helper. Help us to help you and others like yourselves. This is a time for introspection and spiritual accounting and for returning to the Bible and to Biblical values.

Our Books

The "KHAZARS" were a semi-nomadic people who became prominent in southern Russia and its neighborhood in the 600s to 900s CE. They were quite powerful with a far-reaching influence and well-developed civilization.

The Blessings in the Bible given to the Children of Israel were epitomized most strongly in the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Ephraim dominates Britain and her daughters, Manasseh is pre-eminent in the USA.

Chosen People
The Ancient Celts and related peoples referred to themselves as Hebrews.The inhabitants of Britain pertained mainly to clans belonging to Joseph. The Jews need to believe in the God of Israel and keep the Torah.